THE LIMITS OF HUMAN AUTOMATISM. 311 



in his charge to the Grand Jury, they were all guilty of murder, 

 ;is being concerned in the common design of using dangerous 

 violence towards any police who might resist their efforts in 

 procuring the rescue of the prisoners. The man Allen, who 

 fired the fatal shot, seems to have done so in the full knowledge 

 that the sacrifice of his own life would be the consequence : 

 I will fre^ you, Colonel,&quot; he is reported to have said, &quot; if I swing 

 for it.&quot; If the same tiling had been done to rescue an escaped 

 slave, or to retake a ship captured by pirates or mutineers, or 

 by an enemy in war, it would have been accounted a glorious 

 act of heroism. But it can scarcely be doubted that the in 

 fliction of capital punishment on the ringleaders in this outrage 

 was necessary to maintain the supremacy of law and order. 

 The same may be said of the execution of Orsini for his attempt 

 on the life of the Emperor Louis Napoleon. Orsini, it is now 

 well known, was simply the instrument of the Carbonari Society 

 to which the Kmperor had belonged in the earlier part of his 

 life, for inflicting the condign punishment decreed by its laws, 

 as the penalty incurred by any of its members who failed to 

 do everything in his power for the liberation of Italy. The 

 Kmperor, having been formally tried and condemned for his 

 inaction, was decreed worthy of death, according to the oath 

 which he had himself taken ; and lots were cast to select the 

 individual who should be charged with the execution of the 

 sentence. The lot fell upon Orsini, who was summoned from 

 Birmingham for the purpose ; and the summons was one (as 

 he hinted to his friends there) which he felt that he must obey, 

 though at the risk of his own life. It is clear that the Emperor 

 felt no personal ill-will against him, and regarded his execution 

 as a political necessity ; the publication in the Afonittur of the 

 will in which Orsini bequeathed to the Emperor the liberation of 

 Italy and the charge of his children, being understood at the time 

 by well-informed politicians as an acceptance, on the Emperor s 

 part, of both legacies, of which acceptance the liberation of Italy 

 has been the direct or indirect consequence. It is difficult to 

 see in what respect Orsini s act of self-sacrifice, under what we 

 may deem a mistaken sense of duty, was less nobie than that 

 of other patriots whom the world holds in honour 



